


A Cure for Nightmares

by chewysugar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Bisexuality, Boners, Cuddling & Snuggling, Declarations Of Love, Drowning, F/M, Friendship, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Masturbation, Insomnia, Kelpies, Kissing, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Nightmares, Nudity, Partner Swapping, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sequel, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room, Sleeping Together, Summer, The Burrow (Harry Potter), Underwear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 01:55:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19416088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewysugar/pseuds/chewysugar
Summary: Harry was supposed to be the one with the emotional scars, wasn't he? So why is it that, ever since they came back from The War, Ron is acting so differently? Following his best friend during the course of one sleepless night leaves Harry facing down a foe that not even magic can heal. Wands and potions won't do the trick, but maybe there's something to his being able to love that can.





	A Cure for Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by own recent relapse into a period of poor mental health. My heart goes out to anyone out there dealing with anything similar. Remember that you are not your thoughts or emotions; and cling to your own personal Harry, whoever they may be. 
> 
> Also, this serves as a sequel to "Suddenly Last Summer" which was written about three years ago...coincidentally during my first ever bout with OCD and major depressive disorder.

It went without saying that a lifetime of trauma would leave a person with attuned senses for a fitness of things in the immediate area. Harry, in the grips of the rare restful sleep, woke abruptly knowing that something in Ron’s bedroom wasn’t as it had been when they’d both gone to bed that night. Grimacing against momentary blindness, he fumbled for his glasses.

Even in the darkness of the attic bedroom, he could see that Ron’s bed lay empty. The sheets were in disarray, indicating that he’d left in a hurry.

Harry sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. In the heat of high summer, the bedroom wasn’t entirely the most comfortable. But he and Ron had slept here time immemorial before now. Given that they’d both scurried under their blankets in their underwear to stave off the heat, Harry guessed that discomfort was the last thing in the world that had lured Ron from his bed.

Listening, Harry heard nothing but the croak of frogs and the clucking of sleeping chickens from outside. The ghoul in the attic had retired since the house had been once more filled for the summer. Harry guessed it had tasted the bittersweet in the air, and decided to remain mute out of respect. That, or it was biding it’s time.

Whatever the reason, the ghoul hadn’t awakened Ron.

His sense for danger piqued, Harry slipped out of bed. He had just thrown on a thin, blue argyle housecoat when he paused. Of course, there was another perfectly good reason for Ron wanting to disappear in the middle of the night...

A faint blush burned his cheeks as he thought about Ron sneaking off to Hermione’s room. But then again, that wouldn’t be, as Hermione was sharing with Ginny, and the absolute last thing in the world Ron would do was sneak into his sister’s bedroom. Especially not in his underwear.

So what in the name of Merlin’s starched and dry-cleaned knickers did Ron mean by it?

Heat pressing against him like the hold of an incubus, Harry quietly stole from the room. He took care not to make a sound as he closed the door behind him, for fear of waking anyone else up. He could hear nothing aside from gentle snores from the rooms around and below. He didn’t see any betraying signs of light from Ron’s wand down the stairs. Either he’d left the room a good deal of time before, or he’d gone fumbling around in the dark.

Harry kept his wand stowed in the pocket of the open dressing gown. He knew the Burrow well by this point in his life he didn't need light. And a strange part of him wanted the connection of moving as Ron had, near blind, down the twisting stairs.

As much as the War had brought everyone closer together, Harry had felt something of a gulf between himself and his best friend these many weeks. Anyone observing wouldn’t have noticed it—Harry barely did on the best of days. But in the moments when the artifice of day to day life was at its thinnest, he couldn’t deny the distance in Ron’s gaze; nor could he explain away the times when Ron, in the middle of a conversation, would suddenly stop speaking, his face a sudden mask of nothing.

Harry, the so-called brave one, had been too stricken with dread at broaching the subject. He saw eight years of friendship go up in flames whenever he thought of asking Ron how he was. Ron had grown up, that irrepressible fuse of his wired to better outlets. But though the routes had been tweaked, the powered kegs still had the potential to explode. Harry couldn’t stand the idea of causing any kind of unnecessary grief among his family—least of all when he still felt culpable for the loss of Fred.

Hand gripping the railing on the floor of Fred and George’s old room, Harry paused. He took a deep breath, drowning the tide of blazing guilt in an ocean of rationality. He’d already been told, more times than he liked, that he wasn’t to blame for the fallout of the War—that Voldemort and the Death Eaters were responsible. And though it was logical, and true, it did little to stop the scratching claws of blame.

He didn’t have time for it now. Ron needed him. It was a strange way of looking at the situation. For all Harry knew, Ron had gotten up to take a piss, although the bathroom door had been open and empty when he’d passed it by. He was the pursuer, yes, and yet he couldn’t help but feel as if Ron were the one in need of succour.

Once he reached the landing, he heard a faint tapping sound. Frowning, Harry padded in bare feet across the floor. He itched to retrieve his wand; but the seeker’s sense within him told him to stay his hand. He’d have known if there was someone on the property who ought not to be there. The issue at hand didn’t involve an intruder—it involved a runaway.

Side-stepping a slumbering Crookshanks, Harry made for the kitchen. The tapping noise grew louder as he ducked under the door frame. It didn’t take long to discern the source of the noise. The back door to the garden had been left open. In the warm breeze of the night, it was rapping softly against the frame, as if sending out a code of alert.

Ron had gone outside after midnight in his underpants.

A nervous giggle escaped Harry’s lips, even as he stumbled forward in earnest. The mental image of Ron, tall and sturdy with limbs as long as a heron, wandering among the gnomes, near-naked under the stars, was almost comical. But the flip side of that particular picture was alarming. Ron wasn’t the type to do something so rash, even as a joke. That was more Fred and George’s area of expertise.

It was cooler outside the Burrow, but not by much. The basest amount of refreshment spiraled in the air. If rain didn’t come soon, then the country would be doomed to drought. Harry figured people had been through enough as it was. Nature ought to co-operate. Evidently Ron had come out here to cool off, otherwise he’d have simply stayed near the door.

The thought that he could be anywhere made Harry’s chest ache. Ron could have wandered to the village by now; or he could had apparated or fallen into a ravine, or—

“Sod it,” Harry hissed. He withdrew his wand. He couldn’t draw Ron to him, but there were other ways to find a person. “ _Accio_ put-outer.”

Something heavy and metallic rattled from with the Burrow. Harry heard it clink down the stairs. Crookshanks gave an indignant yowl. A split-second later the silver cigarette lighter hurtled through the air towards him. Harry seized it, and wasted no time in opening it.

At once, a sphere of blue light the size of a walnut shot out of the end of the put-outer. It hovered for a single second in front of Harry’s alarmed eyes. Then, with the speed of a hummingbird, it soared away through the darkness. Almost tripping over his own feet, Harry followed. He splashed through the hog’s waller by mistake, and stumbled over the garden gate. The light continued to dart ahead of him, bright but small enough to be lost if he took his eyes off it for even a moment.

It sailed away over the fields and up the hills. Harry wished he’d brought his Firebolt with him. If he lost sight of the sphere, then he’d never find Ron in this darkness. The thought sent a shard of ice through his heart, jagged and sharp as a knife, choking his breath. He couldn’t lose Ron, not after everything they’d been through together—not after what Ron had come to mean to him.

His legs smarted as he followed the light up a steep hill. He knew the place—the apple orchard where he and Ron and the other Weasley children had practiced Quidditch. It made perfect sense for Ron to go here, given the memories it held. And there was a very soothing pond nestled among the trees, almost a lake. If Ron wanted a place to cool off, there was no one better than there, despite the kelpie lurking in the depths. Yet that sense for imminent peril told Harry that Ron hadn’t left the Burrow for a cool dip amid the reeds.

Gasping, Harry crested the hill. The light moved ahead, but now it’s progress had slowed to an almost crawl. In its starry glow, Harry saw a distant shape walking among the trunks of the sheltering apple trees. Hastily, Harry retrieved the put-outer and siphoned the orb of light back into it.

A gibbous moon hovered in the sky overhead, watching all that transpired on the earth below. By its waxy light, Harry crept through the trees. Twigs snapped and leaves rustled ahead as the tall, pale, freckled figure walked as if in a dream. Harry knew it was Ron—had known the second he’d returned the orb of light. He didn’t need to see the fiery red hair or the length of the limbs to know. His recognition went beyond sight, deeper—had it been an imposter in Ron’s place and he’d have known.

Ron walked slowly. Harry did his best to follow as quietly as he could. He supposed Ron was sleep-walking; Harry knew better than to disturb someone under the spell of sleeping awake. Despite every fibre of his being screaming to call out, he had to let Ron carry on, at least until he showed himself in imminent danger.

They walked as if dancing through the trees. Frogs chorused all around them; earthy brine filled the air the closer they drew to the pond. And still Ron walked on, never stopping as branches scratched at his exposed skin. Harry did his utmost not to be distracted. Certainly the combination of Ron in such a state of undress in this particular place brought memories to the forefront of his mind—another hot summer before Sixth Year; them, freshly bathed after a bout of flying, on the banks of the pond, crossing boundaries that transformed their friendship into something deeper.

Harry shook his head. He had to focus.

Ron stepped from the woods, and walked towards the edge of the pond. Harry hovered near the tree line. He was sweating from the trek, covered in scratches from nettles and grasping branches. Ron walked onwards, nearing the bank of the pond. Harry stifled a gasp, expecting Ron to fall, unaware of his surroundings. But Ron paused, mere inches from the water.

His posture tensed. Harry nearly gasped at the abrupt change in Ron’s stance. Ron’s long-fingered hands, limp the entire time, curled into fists. His shoulders began to shake. He bowed his head, and a pitiful sound broke the silence of the clearing. It put Harry in mind of broken spirited dog—a sort of high pitched, but still low whine of deepest, searing pain.

With a shock, Harry realized that Ron was crying. He took a step, hand stretched out, seeking to comfort anyway he could. But the second he moved, Ron did as well, so abruptly that Harry was left in a stupor for several moments, unable to process what he’d just seen. One moment Ron had been near the water’s edge, sobbing not altogether silently. The next, he’d collapsed forwards. His body broke the surface with a crash that, after so much silence, was almost deafening.

Wrenching himself from his state of cold horror, Harry sprang forward. He dove in after Ron, his dressing gown swirling around him. The water was so dense that he could barely see.

His arms flailed.

Forward.

He had to keep going forward. He’d followed Ron almost exactly through the ripples, so it stood to reason that he’d be only feet from him. Yet, despite his splashing through the opaque depths, his hands connected with nothing but murky water.

Terror gnawed at his throat. _Ron_ , he thought frantically, tangled in the restricting fabric of his dressing gown. _Ron_!

Light exploded all at once from his pocket.

The put-outer!

Somehow it had acted of its own volition. The light that burst from it was bright and big, large as a dinner plate; and there wasn’t only a single light, but at least seven burning spheres. Harry saw the entire length and breadth of the pond. Ron hovered several feet away, his body suspended on his back, head tilted as if in a majestic dance pose.

But there was nothing graceful or enthralling in the sinuous tendrils of weed that grasped his wrists and ankles. Most horrifying of all, the form of something with the head and neck of a horse was slowly undulating from what looked like a thicket of pondweed towards Ron’s body. In the light of the spheres, Harry saw that the weeds around Ron’s extremities were actually stemming from the diseased green mane flowing down the kelpie’s head.

Fury coursing through him, Harry seized his wand. The spell came to him as if from nowhere. He slashed his wand through the water; red light shot across the murk; it sliced through the weeds around Ron’s body. The kelpie let out a shriek that churned Harry’s guts, but he’d faced worse horrors than this. Lungs burning with the need to breathe, Harry jabbed his wand forward. Gold light struck the kelpie directly in the face. It screamed, and thrashed backwards. Harry waved his wand once more, and Ron’s prone body jerked towards him as if on a wire. The lights from the put-outer converged on the kelpie, blinding it as Harry, arm around Ron’s waist, kicked for the surface.

Air filled his lungs, blessed and relieving. Despite exhaustion snaking through his bones, Harry kicked with all his might to the shore. Somehow he managed to pull both himself and Ron to the ground. Ron coughed, rolling over and vomiting pond water. The lights shot back from the depths of the pond and into the put-outer. Harry, blinking water out of his eyes, looked round just in time to see something break the surface of the water.

White rage glowed in the kelpie’s eyes. Harry knew enough about magical creatures to understand that he and Ron weren’t out of danger. Kelpie’s could crawl onto land, and thrive within fifteen feet of the water's edge. The beast kicked forward, it’s hooves already crawling up the bank.

Harry pulled Ron up by his armpits. Taking a breath, he spun them both around not a moment too soon. The kelpie lunged forward, it’s jaws snapping in bloodthirsty vengeance. But it gnawed only on air. Harry had disapparated in the nick of time.

Dizzy from his time under water and the sudden change of scenery, Harry nearly lost his grasp on Ron’s body. They were by the back door of the Burrow once again.

Ron stood, as dripping wet as Harry. Body against Harry’s chest, he was as slippery as an eel. He seemed completely incapable of standing up on his own.

“Alright,” Harry gasped. He let go of Ron gradually, unsure of the other’s ability to stand in his own. “Alright, here, let’s...” He pulled his wand out. “ _Calidum aerem_.” Warm air blasted from the tip of his wand. He ran it first over Ron, who stood once more like a zombie; then he ran it over himself, savouring the feeling of being dry despite the heat of the night.

Sufficiently dried, he stood before Ron, not knowing what on earth to say. Damn it, but he needed Hermione here. She would know what to do. But just because she wasn’t present didn’t mean Harry had to go without. He could embrace his inner Granger, and what his inner Granger was saying was that it would be no good questioning Ron. He needed to get them both back inside before they were discovered, and also before Ron did anything drastic.

So, making sure to smile as evenly as he could, Harry said, “Don’t want to sleep with the chickens, do you?”

Ron said nothing. That glazed look was back in his eyes again, and it was almost too painful for Harry to see. Discomfited, he tried to smooth things over with a joke, the way Ron would do in his stead.

“Those pants are complimenting your best feature, mate.”

Still, Ron didn’t say a word. Had he been lucid and he’d have given guff about having had the same size of underwear since age fifteen, and did Harry realize how uncomfortable it was for a bloke with a package like Ron’s to amble about in too-small Y-fronts? Harry longed for this exchange, but Ron seemed incapable of doing anything but standing and staring.

With a sigh, Harry took Ron by the wrist. “Come on, you barmy git. Let’s get you to bed before your mum sees.”

Harry’s fears about being found out were unfounded. The house was still asleep, it being only near two in the morning. Still leading Ron by the hand with a mixture of command and gentility, Harry ascended the stairs. He nearly choked when he heard someone mutter on the floor below the attic; but it was only Ginny talking in her sleep—a habit she’d had ever since Tom Riddle has possessed her.

“There we go,” Harry said, closing and locking the door to Ron’s room the second they were both over the threshold. “Don’t make me hex you to sleep.”

He tried to let go of Ron’s hand. But the second his grasp slackened, Ron responded in complete reverse. He seized Harry’s wrist as if about to die. Harry stared, and found Ron’s face in horrible animation for the first time all night. He’d paled, his freckles contrasting like embers. His lips quivered, and his eyes brimmed with a wash of sudden, hot tears.

“Ron!” Harry gasped. “What’s wrong?”

Again, the noise that escaped Ron’s chest was more animal than human. The rattling groan turned into a pitiful sob, and he collapsed, forward and down, pulling Harry to what little visible floor there was in his room. Bemused and completely powerless, Harry could do nothing but sit there as Ron, head buried in Harry’s lap, sobbed like a child in the dark.

* * *

“Oh buggeration,” Hermione fumed. “The little bastard just had a refusal at the water jump. Pass me the salad tongs, would you Harry...Harry?”

Having been lost in thought for some time, Harry didn’t hear Hermione’s request—at least not until she jabbed him rather hard in the ribs.

“Ouch!” Harry started, and tore his gaze away from the streaks of cirrus whispering across the sky. “What’d you go doing that for?”

“Sadistic glee,” Hermione said with a roll of her eyes. She held a hand out. “The salad tongs. I want to grab that last horklump while it’s still confused.”

“Right.” Harry handed the metallic tongs over. He watched with little enjoyment as Hermione leaned over the hedge and seized the moving fungus with the tongs. The pest put up a rather impressive fight, digging its tendrils deep into the earth. But Hermione, sleeves rolled up past her elbows, preserved. With an indignant squeak, the horklump came loose. Harry, remembering what they’d come out to do, quickly stunned the mushroom-looking creature with a wave of his wand.

“Thank God,” Hermione sighed as she stowed the petrified horklump in a bulging burlap bag. “That should take care of the food supply for the gnomes.”

“Hm.”

Hermione eyed Harry sidelong. With quiet dignity, she tied the end of the horklump-filled sack shut. “Your conversational skills are impressive today.”

“I didn’t sleep well.”

“You look it.” She glanced at his eyes. Harry knew from examination before a mirror that morning that shadows had set in. He hadn’t shaved in two days, either, and a bristly beard was setting in like the first grass of spring. He’d woken up on the floor of Ron’s bedroom at daybreak—too early for a disturbed night. He’d found Ron fast asleep, half-lolled across Harry’s body, an arm loosely around Harry’s waist. The proximity hadn’t entirely bothered him, least of all when he’d recalled that lost, broken look in Ron’s eyes the night before.

In fact, despite the sticky feeling of warm, sweat-slicked skin against his own, waking up thusly had been almost pleasant. He’d had half a notion to pull Ron closer...and then Ron had woken up, and extracted himself away with typical alarm. The reaction had stung, despite Harry’s desire to brush it away. As if Ron hadn’t been the very chap who’d fallen apart in his arms in the wee hours of that morning.

He hadn’t seen Ron since breakfast, when Mrs. Weasley has divvied the chores up among everyone.

“You’re doing it again,” Hermione said. “Staring off into the infinite unknown...”

“Luna taught me,” Harry clapped back, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Why do you think she was so calm all the time?”

“Is that what it was? Meditation? I’d always assumed it was drugs.”

Harry scoffed. “Brilliant way to talk about one of our friends.”

Hermione kicked Harry’s trainer with the toe of her sandal. “You know I’m only having a go. I’m worried about you.”

“I haven’t heard that phrase in a while.” Harry seized the sack of horklumps. Hefting it over his shoulder, he walked towards the compost pile. “I think I was fourteen the last time you said that to me. About to face a dragon, remember?”

“Well, it applies now.” Hermione hurried after him. “Just because the dust has settled doesn’t mean we have to brush it off.”

“Sage advice.” Harry turned the sack over. The second the pile of horklumps touched the loamy compost heap, their bodies began to shrivel. Harry grimaced. Pest control was necessary to save the vegetables, but he didn’t like the idea of committing what was ostensibly mass magical creature genocide.

“I’ve been known to dispense with it from time to time.” Hermione, too, eyed the pile of the recently deceased with some displeasure. “You can talk to me...”

Harry smiled, and dropped the empty sack. “I know I can. And, y’know...I appreciate it.”

Hermione fixed him with that gaze that made him feel as if he were a cipher being decoded.

“It’s not you, though, is it?”

Harry looked across the yard. Near the end of the lane, Ron was stooped next to Bill, shirt tucked into the back pocket of his jeans. They were both making repairs to the fence by hand, wands being too easy a route for repair in Mr. Weasley’s eyes. It certainly looked as if Ron were functioning normally: he and Bill were having a plain conversation, Bill’s scarred face twisted in mirth at something his youngest brother had said. Again, completely ordinary. And yet, in that Harry had seen the reality behind the veneer, this entire exchange seemed like an act.

“You spend a lot more time with him lately than I do,” Harry said with a nod in Ron’s direction.

“One does tend to do that with one’s significant other.”

“So you must have noticed it too, then. He won’t eat nearly as much, he blanks out worse than I do, and...he can’t sleep.” He felt as if he were betraying some kind of sacred trust. But Hermione deserved to know. As Ron’s girlfriend and Harry’s closest friend, she had a right to know as much as Harry did.

When his statement met with silence, Harry slid his eyes from the sight of Ron miming something quite inappropriate with the hammer, to Hermione. Had he not known her as well as he did, and he’d have been surprised at the _lack_ of surprise in her face. As it was, she regarded Ron with a sort of placid understanding.

“Funny, isn’t it?” She said sadly. “He’d be the one most hurt by it all. You’d think after this...” She rubbed the scar on her arm—the pale slur stark against her brown skin. “And everything else...and he’s always trying to make light of things...”

“Hermione, what—

“He’s sick, Harry.” Her eyes burned with an intensity like rain. “He came back from war, and he’s sick.”

Harry swallowed. Of course, he’d heard of such things in the muggle world—soldiers returning home with scars deeper than grey matter. Why it hadn’t afflicted him was almost as ludicrous as Hermione had suggested. But then if Ron was ailing from deep psychological scars—

“Can’t we make something for it?” Harry kicked at the pale yellow carcass of a horklump. “A potion or a spell.” He’d regrown the bones in his arm. Why something couldn’t be done for Ron shouldn’t be too great a mystery.

“Ginny would have more insight on that than I would.”

Harry glared at her. “Just what is that supposed to mean.”  
  
“It means,” said Hermione patiently, “that there are some things magical medicine can’t heal, Harry. Imagine if every witch and wizard under the sun went reaching for a potion whenever an unpleasant memory surfaced?”

He didn't have to imagine. Muggles had a hard enough time coping with trauma without descending into the pit of addiction. “They’d...they’d never be able to cope.”

Hermione nodded. A stray curl escaped from the bushy ponytail she’d tied her hair in that morning. “They’d become addicted to it. All these torments and tragedies make us what we are, for better or for worse.”

A chilling thought tiptoed across Harry’s mind. “Is that...is that why Neville’s parents can’t be cured?”

“Yes. The closest you can get is memory modification, and that’s an all or nothing option. You can lift them, but you have to obliterate them first.” Her voice shook. Harry grasped her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“They’ve forgiven you,” he said softly.

Hermione laughed. “Doesn’t mean they were happy about it.”

“What are we supposed to do, then? He’s falling apart...”

“What are _you_ supposed to do, you mean.”

Harry’s grasp fell. He stared at Hermione, waiting for her to say that she was just joking.

“Hermione...”

“I’m doing all I can. Whenever we’re together, I try. I’m the shoulder I know I ought to be, and he’s still like this.” She shook her head. “It’s not me he needs right now, Harry. Not if he’s still behaving like this. He needs you.”

They stood in silence for several moments. Geese trumpeted around them. Pigs grunted and gnomes squeaked among the shrubs. Harry kept his eyes on Ron, wondering what exactly he was supposed to do. Somehow the thought of trying to help someone who meant as much to him as Ron seemed more daunting than facing down a swarm of dementors.

“You have my full blessing in the matter, too,” Hermione said with a mysterious smile.

Harry blinked.

“Come again?”

“If it comes to that, then I suppose so.”

Harry shook himself. “What in the name of Princess Diana is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you are allowed to proceed no matter what. And don't disrespect the memory of Lady Di.” With a dreamy sigh, Hermione strode away.

Bristling indignantly, Harry said, “Oh go ahead, then! Be cryptic! Why tell me straight when you can deal in riddles?”

Hermione turned, walking backwards towards the open kitchen door. “Harry, we both know there’s no fun in my telling you plain. Besides, you’ll figure it out. You’re a lot smarter than you give yourself credit for.”

“Not as smart as you.”

Smiling, Hermione said, “And don’t you go forgetting it.” Then she disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Harry mute with frustration. He looked back to where Ron and Bill were nailing a board to the fence posts. Once more, Ron was looking into vacant space as if seeing nothing at all.

What on earth was he supposed to do about that beautiful, beautiful boy?

* * *

Evening found Harry outside, curled on a patchwork hammock stretched between two old beech trees. Ron had avoided him all day, and Harry couldn’t say that he was terribly unhappy about the fact. Not because he wanted to be away from Ron—far from it. It was just that the need within him to offer some kind of aid was so great , and reality had given him so little, that distance afforded more calm.

The sky had turned a blushing shade of pink. Gold tinted the clouds as the sun sank behind the horizon. Dusky moths fluttered over his head. Stomach full of food, he ought to have been content. Yet he hadn’t been able to stop thinking ever since earlier that day.

He’d come to a vague conclusion based on Hermione’s blessing. It wasn’t entirely unappealing, even though it presented several complications. Faced with the possibility of confronting the issue at hand, Harry did a feint to put Krum to shame. He rolled over, the hammock swaying, and thus, turned his back on that particular thought for now. Thought, being fickle, still faced him from this direction, but these were ones that Harry felt more equipped to battle.

Why Ron?

Try as he might, Harry could not make himself fall apart. He thought of the people lost in the War—his parents, Cedric, Sirius; Professor Dumbledore, and all those others who fell in the Battle of Hogwarts. His chest tightened, and his eyes burned. Yet somehow he was able to grasp the peace of mind needed to overcome. He hadn’t lost sleep over the countless traumas of the War. He’d thought and thought until his brain threatened to crumble, yet the second the foundations shook, everything was set to rights again. What had happened had happened. Did it make him cold?

No.

It made him suited. He’d known death all his life, and had sought chaos as a trusted ally until reason had made him see the folly in danger-seeking. Ron simply had a different brain, a different soul—not better, not worse, just...Ron. He’d gotten injured, physically yes, but also in a place no medicine or magic could touch.

Anger burned the pit of his stomach. And magic was supposed to be such a boon to wizardkind. Fat load of good magic turned out to be when it really mattered. What in the hell did—

“You’re going to burn a hole through your glasses.”

The purr of the only voice he wanted to hear at that moment made him sit up. He nearly upset his position on the hammock, and tried to sit still even as Ginny laughed at him from near the end of the trees. The soft, warm breeze played with the hem of the white sundress she wore, offering a tempting glimpse of her long, bare legs.

“You’re here in the nick of time,” Harry sighed. “I was about to think myself to death.”

“Oh dear.” Ginny strode languidly towards him. “Swift death, or prolonged?”

“Drawn and quartered.”

“Not castrated too, I sincerely hope.” Cat-like, she climbed into the hammock. The feel of her warm, soft body almost chased away the cloud of malaise over Harry’s heart.

“Would it disappoint you if I said yes?”

“That would ruin my second favourite part of your body.”

He wrapped his arms around her, savouring the closeness. She smelled of sunshine and wildflowers, and it took everything in Harry’s power to not melt right there. “Second?” He threaded his fingers through her firegold hair. “Should I ask what the first is?”

“Your big, hard, throbbing, sexy...eyes.” Ginny stuck her tongue out. “And those eyes are currently green with worry.” She crooked her head under his chin. “What’s wrong, my heart?”

Harry sighed. “It’s totally fucking mental.”

“That bad, huh?”

“No, I mean it’s to do with up here.” He pressed a kiss against her forehead.

“That’s a dangerous place.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not my own head.”

Ginny turned her face up to him. “Then whose?”

“Your brother’s.”

“Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George or Ron?”

Harry winced at her inclusion of Fred. Ginny herself seemed to understand the mistake she’d made. She screwed her face up in confusion, as if trying to understand something entirely incomprehensible. Harry tightened his embrace, the hammock gently rocking to and fro like a tide.

“I’m sorry, darling,” he whispered.

“Don’t be stupid,” she said. After a moment of contemplative silence she added, “It’s Ron, isn’t it?”

Harry nodded. Needing levity in the moment, he threw a touch of the Northern into his voice. “Aye. That’s right love. It is.”

“World saviour and top notch mimic,” Ginny said with a grin. “I must have had some felix felicis when I met you.”

Harry chuckled, but sobered just as quickly. “You’ve seen him, haven’t you? The way he acts, the way he talks sometimes...”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed. He thinks he’s doing a stellar job at hiding it from everyone, doesn’t he?” Ginny shook her head. “But Ron never was one for putting up a good act.”

“No. We all know you’re the best liar among the lot.”

“It was an adaptation. Having as many brothers as I did taught me to play fast and loose with the truth.”

For several long moments they lay together, watching the setting sun as the hammock rocked from side to side. A cloud of bats took flight from a crevice in the side of the Burrow. Frantic and squeaking, they fluttered across the rosy sky and settled in a grove on the other end of the property.

“What am I supposed to do, Ginny?” He sounded hopeless, too hopeless to his own ears. “Hermione thinks that I can help him in a way she can’t—in a way nobody else can...”

Ginny dragged an idle finger along the length of Harry’s exposed arm. “Well, if Hermione thinks it, there’s merit in it, right?”

“But what am I supposed to do?” He thought, again, of that frighteningly astonishing something that had ghosted across his mind all that day. It made him feel strange, holding Ginny like this.

“You’ve got to be there for him, sweetheart,” she said soothingly. “Whatever that means. It could take ages. He might be like this for a long time. The rest of his life, even.”

Harry’s heart sank. He’d been afraid of that, although a small part of him had clung to the childish notion that his helping Ron once would be enough to help him forever.

“What matters,” Ginny went on, “Is that you’re a present force. That's what Luna was to me after Voldemort and that damn diary. She was there whether I was bouncing off the walls in delight or sinking through the earth in misery. It’s his fight now, Harry. You have to be the support for once, not the warrior at the head of the charge.”

“Think I was a warrior, did you?” Harry said, heat rushing to his face as well as other parts of his body.

Ginny laughed, free as a soaring hawk. “Yes. I think we all were. And Ron just had the misfortune of suffering after the battle ended.”

Harry hesitated for a moment. “Ginny, Hermione said that—

“Oh, the permission slip.” Brown eyes met Harry’s with the devil-may-care thirst for a challenge that had made her so indelible on the Quidditch team.

Harry groaned. “Women talk. I’d forgotten.”

“A cardinal sin,” Ginny tutted. “And don’t worry your pretty heroic head, darling. We both love him. If it’s to help him, then I’ll look the other way.”

“But it is weird, isn’t?”

“Weird?” Ginny maneuvered herself into a sitting position as best he could. She kissed Harry softly, her lips like the brush of a tiger lily petal. “Harry, it’s positively insane.”

* * *

Harry made sure to be the first in the attic bedroom that night. He’d spent a rather pleasant hour or so on the hammock with Ginny, watching as the moon glided into the starry, velvet sky. It was only when Ginny had suggested he was deliberately stalling that Harry dragged himself upstairs. Ron had been in the sitting room, staring into the empty hearth, while Hermione went over her school shopping list.

There was every suggestion that Ron was avoiding the room at large—Harry in particular. But Harry himself was guilty of waylaying contact. Once upstairs, he spent needless minutes fussing with his bed covers. He changed out of his clothes and into his pajamas despite knowing it was too hot to sleep in much. Only when he’d spent ten minutes pacing and working up needless sweat did he realize that he was fighting the most losing of all battles. He stripped down to his skivvies, and then busied himself reorganizing the contents of his trunk—things that didn’t really need doing but what choice did he have? The prospect of confronting Ron was almost perilous.

Slowly, the occupants of the Burrow put themselves to bed. Sleepy footsteps ascended the stairs. Doors closed softly, as if in hopes of blocking out the heat. Ginny popped in dressed for sleep in thin t-shirt and pair of shorts that made Harry deeply wish he weren’t wearing such revealing underwear.

“You’ll be fine,” she said, kissing him quickly. “Remember, it’s—

“Not my fight,” Harry said. “Right. Er, did you come up here just to tell me that?”

“No, I also wanted to see you in your altogether.” She laughed, and gave him a quick swat on the arse that made him jump. “Not bad, Harry.” And she walked away, the sight of her skin making Harry harder than he’d ever been in his life.

Ten minutes past, and Ron still didn’t appear.

Fifteen minutes...Harry took care of the lingering hard-on Ginny had left him with.

Twenty five minutes...still no Ron.

When a little over half an hour had elapsed, Harry decided to steal downstairs again, and see if Ron had decided to sneak out once more. He had his dressing gown on, his hand over the doorknob, when the door opened.

Harry gasped. Ron jumped, and nearly backed into the dark hallway.

“Christ alive, Harry!” He closed the door, his hairs on end. “I thought you would’ve been asleep by now.”

Harry stood back, watching as Ron peeled out of his day clothes. “I could say the same about you.”

Ron shrugged, tugging his jeans down. “Yeah, well, I tried sleeping in the sofa. Cooler down there by loads.”

“But?”

“Crookshanks. Little bastard jumped on me just as I was starting to nod off.” He spoke casually, but his ears had turned the colour of a budding rose. Harry didn’t mind so much that he was lying. It made sense now.

Ron made to climb under the covers. Feeling as if he were losing a final opportunity, Harry tried to say “Wait a moment,” but the sound stuck in his throat, and came out as a squeak.

Ron frowned in the act of rolling over to turn the lamp off. “You alright?”

Harry swallowed. “Yeah. Starting to wonder if you are, though.”

Ron clicked the light off. “I don’t want to talk about it. Night, Harry.”

Feeling as if he’d been on the receiving end of a stunner, Harry numbly walked back to his mattress. He sat down, staring around at the garish orange walls and old Chudley Cannons posters. His eyes fell on the put-outer. It had led him to Ron last night, had helped him save Ron’s life. Shame that it couldn’t shine its lights inside Ron’s mind and chase the shadows back to the abyss from whence they'd come.

 _That’s your job_ , said a sage voice in his head. _And remember that you can’t defeat it._

Harry sighed, and fell to his pillows. He hated the helplessness. He’d always operated under the assumption that battles were made to be won—that every adversary could be bested if one was persistent enough. After all, he’d faced death and walked right around as if he’d forgotten to pay for fare at the Underground. He’d thought himself capable of handling anything after that. Yet what Hermione had said was true: this was not only a fight with no possible ending, but it wasn’t his fight at all.

Men and women who’d come back from muggle wars had to live with the stains on their emotions and memories. Harry knew that doctors used medicine and therapy to aid the best that they could. But he’d never heard of any sort of success story.

 _Be present_ , he told himself. _Like Luna was for Ginny. If it were you, what would you want?_

He fisted the sheets as Ron began to snore. Beyond the petulant answer of “I’d want everyone to leave me the bloody hell alone,” he extracted the truth: he’d want to know he wasn’t any different--from anyone else, or from how he'd once been. He’d want Hermione to stand by him as she had through every corporeal danger; he’d want Ginny to still look at him as if he were Apollo come to Earth. And he’d want Ron to be that continued bastion against all the world had to throw it him—that special person deeper than a friend and more crucial than a lover.

Harry waited, staring at the dusty ceiling.

He did not know how long it took for Ron to bolt upright. Mere minutes might have elapsed, or an entire hour could have gone by. But eventually, Ron launched himself from his covers, gasping as if strangled. And Harry, having been waiting for this moment all the time, slipped from his mattress to Ron’s side. He didn’t hesitate a second in putting an arm around Ron’s bare shoulder, soothing away the fever blistering his skin.

“It’s alright,” Harry whispered, surprised at how easy he found this. “It’s alright, Ron. There’s nothing here. Just me.”

Ron gulped air like it was water. Beads of sweat lined his forehead. He stared round with wide, bloodshot eyes. His gaze fell on Harry, recognition rife. That was a relief. Harry had been afraid Ron might not know who it was sharing his bedroom.

“I know,” Ron gasped. “I know. It’s fine. It’s just—I had a...” His voice trailed away. Comprehension cracked the naked fear, giving way to a mask of irritation. He shoved Harry’s hand away. Wrapping his arms around himself, Ron looked towards the window beside his bed. “I’m fine,” he said again.

Harry sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and then turned the bedside lamp on. “No,” he said, “you are most certainly _not_ fine.”

“I am.”

“The fuck you are.”

Ron shook himself. “Harry, I'm warning you—

“You think I’m dumb, huh? That I haven’t noticed. Christ, Ron, after last night I’m surprised you _don’t_ want to talk about it.”

“Oh, so you know everything then. I’d forgotten that the Chosen One—

“That’s not going to work, Ron.” If the stupid prat had been hoping to push Harry away with feigned petulance then he was barmier than first believed. “I want to help.”

Ron took a breath. “It’s nothing,” he said again, pointedly not looking at Harry. “Last night was just...I was just hot, and I slipped into the pond, is all.”

“You did not slip,” Harry said, using a calm tone of voice he’d picked up from years of close association with Hermione. “I was standing right there. You walked. And not in your sleep, either.”

Ron bowed his head. Harry would have preferred some kind of rancour to this gesture of defeat. It made the whole beastly bastard thing all too real. A moment later, though, when Ron raised his head to give Harry a glare to poison sugar, he found he rather preferred the vulnerability.

“There’s nothing you can do,” he said levelly. “Just leave off.”

Harry shook his head. “I’m not going to do that.”

“Harry—

“Hermione has tried; your sister has tried. I’m pretty sure everyone else has but me. I’m a bit thick on the best of days—self-involved former Chosen One, remember? But I’m...I’m here, Ron. There’s something wrong, and I want to make it better.”

Ron sprung into sudden animation. He kicked his sheets off, and tucked his thumbs into his underwear. “Is that what this is about? You wanna wank off together again? Okay, come on. Let’s wank.”

It took Harry several moments of mute silence to put a finger on the sensation creeping through his gut. Even as Ron tugged his underwear down to his ankles, Harry could think of nothing but the strange feeling of something that had struck him so fast and left his responses feeling so sluggish.

Betrayal. That’s what it was—hurt that Ron had taken something so personal and private—so secretly meaningful—and been so utterly careless with it. But dumbfoundedness wouldn't help, no matter how justified Harry felt in feeling it.

“Don’t,” Harry said. He grabbed Ron’s wrists, forcing his hands to his sides. “Stop it.”

Ron tried to jerk away. Harry redoubled his grasp, hanging on for dear life as Ron did everything in his power to regain autonomy. He kicked and flailed, snarled and swore, and still Harry clung tight.

Then the frenzy ebbed, and Ron sat his shoulders heaving, pants quite literally around his ankles. Harry hastily covered Ron’s body with a sheet, then sat back, waiting. Hermione and Ginny had told him to be present; so present he would be, no matter how the inactivity killed him.

Ron’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He looked up, as if hoping the ceiling would devour him alive. Harry felt his stomach twist at the sight of the silvery tears that spilled down Ron’s cheeks.

“I hate you,” Ron said after a prolonged silence.

Harry arched his eyebrows. Oddly enough, he'd been expecting something like that for years. “Is that all?”

Ron stared, incredulous. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes. And I don’t blame you, mate. I hate me too. Quite more often than you’d believe.”

“But...you’re my best friend, Harry,” Ron said, sounding smaller than a field mouse. “And after everything—the battles, and, y’know...” He gestured at his concealed lap. “It doesn’t exactly feel great.”

“Look at what I put you through,” Harry said. It stunned him that he felt so blasé in light of the revelation. And yet it clicked with the logical part of his mind. He was amazed anyone at Hogwarts wanted to be associated with him, given his status as Typhoid Mary. “Look at what happened to your family because of me.”

“But I don’t really hate you,” Ron said insistently. “It’s not that I really do, it’s just I think about it—I try to figure it out and sometimes all it comes back to is being so, y’know...angry at you.”

Harry covered Ron’s hand with his own. “I get it, mate. Really. If you don’t want me here anymore, I’ll shove off.”

Ron chuckled, and shoved Harry with his shoulder. Now that at least one truth had been divulged, he seemed to have gone back to some semblance of himself. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it. It’s the War. That’s what I hate the most. Being with you is kind of right alongside all that bullshit. I wish I could just put some kind of wall between the two, but sometimes I’m not so great at it.”

Harry sighed. “Good thing that’s all behind us then, huh? It was only, what? Eight years? We could have until we’re grey haired and saggy bollocked ahead of us...that's more time spent being out of a War than a part of it as friends."

“Oh, don’t say that.” Ron squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m rather enjoying full use of my bollocks, thank you very much.” But his eyes grew haunted a second later. He seemed poised to say something, but didn’t appear willing to formulate speech. Harry waited again, resisting every urge to try and lead Ron down the path he wanted him to traverse.

_Be. Present..._

_His. Fight..._

Ron wasn’t t stupid. Of course, he wouldn’t believe that had it come from the Oracle of Delphi. Next to Hermione’s booksmarts and Harry’s leadership, he always measured himself as lesser. But Ron was instinctual. More than that, he was everything Harry wasn’t: openly vulnerable, more willing to love and trust. The thought of some psychological scar damaging that beautiful, kind heart made Harry want to scream bloody murder.

“There’s...something else.” Ron rubbed at his eyes. “Harry, I...I think I’m going mad.”

Harry took a breath. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, what makes you think that?”

“Come off it,” he said. “You saw me last night.” Ron shook his head. “I can’t sleep, Harry. I can’t...” His voice shook. Harry put an arm around Ron, and held him close.

“Thanks,” he whispered.

“Anytime,” Harry said. “And I mean anytime. I want you to be able to talk to me, mate. About anything.”

Ron nodded. “I can’t sleep. Sometimes it’s like tonight. I’ll just slip into it and then I’ll see things, hear things and feel them...”

“Bad dreams?”

“Yeah. Really bad. And then, like last night, I won’t be able to sleep no matter how much I try. I’ll try to calm down but I keep thinking. No matter what, I just...I think, and I can't stop. I remember the battles and everything that happened to us. Sometimes even during the day...it’s like I’m there again.” He smiled wanly, and ground the heel of his palm into his forehead. “I can hear it. Well, not actually _hear_ it. I just imagine that I do. The walls crumbling, people screaming...” A few more tears spilled down his eyes. “I just want to sleep, Harry. I just want to fucking sleep.”

Hermione had told him to do whatever it took; Ginny had given her blessing. Throwing caution to the wind, Harry cupped Ron’s chin in his fingers. Looking into Ron’s eyes, he gave him a reassuring smile, and then kissed him softly. His lips were rough from so many days of his life spent under the sun and in the open air.

Ron gasped, but did not tear himself away. When they broke apart, he was, in fact, smiling.

“Medicinal, that?” He said.

Harry shrugged. “As if it’s the most hardcore thing we’ve ever done together.” He licked his lips, tasting traces of Ron on his tongue. “Did it help?”

Ron sighed. “I wish it had. Really. I wish it was enough. I don’t know what it’s going to take...”

“Sleeping draught?” Harry had a sudden mental image of Hermione waking up and glaring at the ceiling, disturbed from sleep by the force of his stupidity.

“I’ve thought about it,” Ron said. “It’s just...”

“I know, mate. I know. You’d keep reaching for them.”

Harry picked at the russet of Ron’s bedspread.

“Last night helped,” Ron said suddenly.

Harry glanced at him. The ghost of a smile lit up his face.

“After we came back...with you...I just felt safe.”

“We can do that,” Harry said. “If it helps.”

“In this heat?”

“Didn’t seem to bother either of us before. Besides, after how many times we we’ve wanked together, it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“Well, no.” Ron held his gaze. “It’s just...it feels so...y’know.”

“Intimate?”

Ron went red as a beet. Harry took both Ron’s hands in his.

“Look, Ron...you’re my best friend. Hermione is too, but it’s different with her. You...you were the one who opened the door to all this. If you hadn’t come into my compartment that day I’d probably be lying dead in Knockturn Alley.” He smiled, feeling his own eyes start to burn behind his glasses. “There’s no me without you, mate. And if you need me to do anything to help you with this—if it takes us the rest of our lives—then I’ll do whatever I can to help short of ritual Satanism.”

Ron laughed again. He looked at Harry as if he were the mysteries of the universe given human form. “I love you, Harry. As much of a poof as it makes me to say that.”

“Don’t be thick.” Harry kissed Ron’s forehead again. It would be bizarre, learning the steps of the Harry-Ron-Hermione-Ginny dance. But they’d figure it out. “I love you too. You know that.”

Ron sighed, then looked into his lap. “Going to be right strange sleeping like this, I guess.”

With a smirk, Harry got to his feet. He shrugged his dressing gown off, and slipped his own underwear off. “There,” he said, spreading his arms. “Completely even.”

“Not shy, are you?”

“What reason would I have to be shy around you?”

Chuckling, Ron leaned back on his mattress. He gestured for Harry. It took them a few moments to find something comfortable enough. In the end, they managed it by putting the sheet around Ron so that their skin wouldn’t stick together.

“Thank you,” Ron mumbled. Harry smiled, enjoying the feeling of Ron breathing beside him, basking in the idea that here, like this, he could help. It seemed such a small thing to do—one mere swipe against a Titan. Yet the fact that he was doing it, and doing it for Ron, made warmth ripple throughout his body.

“Sweet dreams, Ron” Harry whispered. Moments later, Ron was fast asleep.

He didn’t wake once all night long.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed the story!


End file.
